Stay at home/home schooling mom reality check #4

Must make a list the morning of, or night before and stick it somewhere you can find it. Otherwards it a zillion to-do's that get 1/2 started on, or not started on at all, and I seem to find the time to be on FB way longer than necessary.

Christmas 2009 #2

Christmas around the Petersen family goes something like this....Christmas Eve, re-inactment of the Christmas story,...always a huge hit! Many gifted vocalists and musicians caroling in the living room together. Lots of food and fun. Christmas morning...we arise after staying the night at Nana's and Papa's. Presents and brunch there, were we visit with everyone again. Then on to another house to eat and visit, finishing the festivities off at my Granma Pentacost's with more food, family, friends and fun. This year we picked up Christmas where it left off,....yep, on the 26th we celebrated more with John's family (forgot to take pics!). It was so fun getting to visit with Patrick, Aunt Jill, Uncle Roland and Bob, Suz and two of her friends :) No doubt, by the end, we are all cranky and exahusted, but it is so well worth the fun! On another note...it's great to have John here this Christmas! After 2 yrs of him being away!


Here are some of the other pictures from the holidays this year. Unfortunatly, the extended family picture was nothing but a big blurr. Below is the joy from the family after opening a big box of stuffed animals from Grandpa Dick and Grandma Phyllis.....except for Chloe, who was up past her bed time :) Isn't he the cutest raindeer you've ever seen?!

Breakin' in the toys! A new lego type project.

The biggest hit of all were these $5 Walmart swords. They make these awefull clanking sounds, that I'm still hearing around my house!

Chloe's fav gift....the movie Annie

Merry Christmas 2009 #1

Here is the begining of the Christmas 2009 pictures. These are some of Christmas morning. We stayed at my parents and Santa came. Very fun for everyone when we stay there....except for the night before when I'm frantically packing, but Christmas morning is always fun at their house :)
Zach and Papa. Chloe, showing just how excited she really was!

I'm not even sure what Luke is showing in this picture....one of his many presents :)

Zach, modeling his new bib!

Chirstmas night. My sistas :) Carinn and I are modeling our new hats.

New changes in the New Year!

New changes in the New Year! Through prayer and alot of talking, John and I have decided to home school Chloe this uncoming semester. John likes the idea becuase we will get to spend alot more time with her. I like the idea becuase of all the wonderfull class/education opurtunities the home school programs (that are run through the school district) offer now days. Plus the great reimbursement the schools offer for everything from books to piano lessons! Will we love it?? Time will tell.
The other thing I realized was that I was going to need to quit my job. I wrestled about when I should quit. After all, it is only 1 day/week (excpet the fall, where it had been 2-3 days/week). The more I thought about it, the more I decided I would quit sooner than later, and get going on this house, which has become a disaster zone, since my work schedule had picked up this past fall.
Keep in mind, I have never liked the idea of being a complete stay-at-home mom. I've always liked having a little bit of work in my life, but with 4 kids, a busy church/social schedule and remodling....what has been a very time-intensive house, I'm beyond tired of the out-of-control chaotic life, and am ready to get some thing under control.
I will document my journey as I go. I've already come to some relaizations this past three weeks of no work. Afterall hind-site's 20/20 :)

1.) there is somthing to be said for being too busy to care! As I've been at home, I've noticed things bother me that didn't bother me as much before....bascially because I didn't have time for them to. The disasterous laundry room, with clothes that never made it in the drawers. Unorganized kitchen drawers, dirty sheets on beds ect, ect....now all seem to be much more awefull then they were when I barly had time to notice them.

2.) Monday mornings are Monday mornings. Today, is just that, a Monday morning. I'm listening to my 7 yr old scream in time out. The baby is starting to cry at the highchair, there are 50 zillion tasks at hand. Right now, it almost seems better to go to work. Where all the people who are off to work, after a long holiday weekend, are wishing they were blogging with coffee at home....Mondays, are Mondays no matter what you do :)

3.) Two parents at home full-time can make it....untill they have to organize a house together! John was back in April after a 2 yr deployment. I always feared the phase of him coming home, doing school on line and being home all day, every day. I figured we would want to kill each other after awhile, but suprisingly, we've done very well. Untill we start to clean stuff or organize rooms together! The the first born, bosy child comes out in both of us! So far, John has annoyed the crap out of me sometimes, by organizing closets and cuboards himself and since I really didn't have time to do it. I just let him dump my stuff in other places here and there. Annoying, but understandable. Now we are really going to have to work on learning how to comprimise and agree :)

Yes, a long blog. I will continue to document my reality checks about completely being a stay- at-home mom.

The Living Nativity 2009

Two years ago, John had just left for Iraq. I took the three kids, I had at the time, with my parents to this Nativity. I remember Chloe was acting awefull that night, Joel was just barley 2 yrs old. Kids needed bathroom breaks, were so squirly and loud, I had to take them out during the performance ect, ect... What a difference 2 yrs makes!
The kids LOVED the nativity last night. Luke was amazed by the huge angel, the boys both that the Roman centurians were awesome, Chloe was a wonderful helper, Joel was still a little squirly, but pretty good for Joel, and another great thing, was that John was there. We had a great time as a family. Such a magical performance!

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party! 2009

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party with the home groupies!

John's sweater is pretty horrible!

Good dudes...in really bad sweaters!

Kiddos eating the goodies.

Frist Haircut and the Case of the Uncooperative Shepard!

Zachy's first haircut! He actually seemed like he liked most of it. Our lovely beautician....Auntie! Oh I love my new doo! I feel like a new person!

Here is Joel, or the night this picture was taken....a shepard. His preschool class performed a nativity scene and sang some song. The teachers had told us that Joel was being pretty uncooperative during rehersal and Joel would tell us that he didn't want to do the performance, but we encouraged him to do it anyway.

When he went on stage, he layed facedown at first, then put his sheep over his head or face, made funny faces and at the end turned to the angels in back of him and repeatedly yelled, "shepards do not take care of sheep!". Oh that child! What to do with that child?!

One example of how the performance went.

Our "new" annual Cabel Bridge Run

The city of Pasco hosts an annual run over that we participated in this year. John signed me up for the 10K, which I was not thrilled about. It had been a cold and icy month, and I had honestly ran about 2 times in Dec! Anyways, I did make it, and it really wasn't that bad. The worst thing I had to do was listen to John gripe about how slow we were going! I am well aware that we wouldn't have passed the Army PT test! On a bright note, we had some fun friends who ran it too. Katy, Kelli and Gene, here's to a new annual tradition! The Cabel Bridge Run! (Wish I had a picture!)

Woohoo...sledding!

Pre-sledding picture. Hopefully we'll get more snow this winter. We got a little the other day, enough to have a 2 hr delay. The kids got to go sledding and the next day it was a sheet of ice...school was cancled, and we leanred that when "ice sledding", Luke needs to wear a helmet! Go, Luke, go!

Chloe girl :)

Ready, set, sled!

Joel man!

It's Christmas time '09!

Movie night....Fellowship of the Rings. Joel, decorating the tree.

Chloe, on watch, for Christmas ornaments.

Luke, hard at work, putting the tree together!

Movie night again, Fellowship of the Rings cont....

The Wedding

Katy and Cameron got married! and Chloe, Luke and Joel were in the wedding. The wedding turned out absolutely beautiful! But Joel was extreemly uncooroperative! So much so that I almost had to exclude him from the wedding! However, by the grace of God, he made it down the isle, stood there for 10 minutes, without twirrling, or making silly faces, and then made it back to where we were sitting, and then was immediatly escorted out of the wedding by his dad! Fewf!
I realize with all the hoop-la, I didn't get many good pictures. Oh well, I'm sure you'll get the idea. The wedding/wedding party/ and my kids looked adorable!

The lovely ladies!

The family :)

I tried to take about 20 pre-wedding pics of the kids, this was by far the best. Oh, I love my boys! Zach's other mom, Denise, stealin' a kiss!The food crew! This pictures shows just how cooperative Joel was to work with that day! Errrrr.